Website take a long time to load

Our short attention spans are not just making us check our phones several hundred times per day; they’re also making us really impatient, when it comes to waiting for websites to load. According to a KISSmetrics report, 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less, and 40% abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load. 

Slow loading time frustrates your site visitors and affects conversion rate and brand perception — especially for mobile users, who are sometimes relying on slower internet connections when browsing the web. Researchers found in a study that browsers blamed the website owners and not the mobile provider for the speed.

It is not optimised for smartphones

When browsing the internet on a mobile phone, have you ever been forced to scroll from side-to-side to read copy on a website? Or have you had to pinch-to-zoom because the words or buttons on a page were way too small?

Google announced a major mobile algorithm update in summer 2015 that penalises sites that aren’t mobile-friendly, and announced it would strengthen the ranking signal from mobile-friendly websites starting on May 1, 2016.

A big part of why Google continues to make these changes is to improve the web browsing experience for mobile users. So if your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices, you’ll likely lose out significantly in the organic search rankings. This is something you cannot ignore as you will lose visitors.

It offers poor navigation

When someone lands on your site, do they know what to do? Where to go? What their next steps should be?

While this seems obvious, research by Small Business Trends suggests that 80% of small B2B business websites lacked a call-to-action.

They weren’t missing out on leads and sales because their CTAs were poorly written; they were missing out because they simply didn’t provide any direction on their website or ask people to click around.

Include clear headline copy, jargon less page copy that explains the value of what you do, and a clear primary call-to-action that shows visitors how to take the next steps — whether that’s subscribing to your blog, getting a free trial, watching a video, or any other action you hope visitors will perform on your site.

When it comes to navigation there is are certain expectations from your visitor as they are used to a format on the Internet. Stick to the format to make it easier for them to find the information.

It contains multimedia content that autoplays

This is one way on annoying your visitor and hurrying for the back button. If someone’s enjoying what they thought was a silent browsing session and they’re bombarded with your theme song or a talking head on a video for which they didn’t press “play” — especially if they can’t find the button for “stop”. They will click the back button.

Although Facebook and Twitter now autoplay videos in our feeds, note that they’re always on mute unless users choose to un mute them.

Disorienting animations

You’re probably familiar with the blink test by now. You know, the three seconds users have to orient themselves on any given web page before they click “back” in their browser.

Animations, autoplay videos, blinking and flashing paid advertisements, and other interactive entertainment may seem really cool, but if they’re too obtrusive or disorienting, they can detract from a visitor’s focus during those critical three seconds.

It’s filled with generic or bad stock photography

You may already know that using images is great for your inbound marketing. Images are helpful if they clarify something for a visitor.  Generic stock photography doesn’t help visitors or your business.

It’s much better to show real pictures of customers, employees, your company, your product, and your location. If you don’t have a lot of your own photos, read my blog post 39 websites for free stock images. These sites offer high resolution stock images that look more realistic.

It contains a contact form, but no additional contact information

A ‘Contact Us’ form may seem like an easy way to generate an opt-in email list, but it’s really the least valuable form of lead generation for you and your site visitors.

So, let’s say they do in fact have a one-time request. There’s nothing wrong with having a “Contact Us” module on your site, but it should never be the only means of communication between you and your customers. If your visitor or customer needs help, they want it now. They don’t want to fill out a form and wait to see when, if ever, they get a response.

Let people get in touch with you via email, the phone, and social media, and make that information available on your website.

The About Us page is not very clear

Does your ‘About Us’ page explain what you do in business babble, or using the words and phrases common to the general population? Use of jargon and elements specific to your business world will not make sense to Joe Blog. Use simple language, the type of spoken language of Joe Blog.

Your site does not explain in simple terms what your company does

Just like the  ‘About Us’ page, you will annoy your visitor if they have to click around to understand what you do. In most cases they will hit the back arrow.

The best webpages clearly explain who they are, what they do, and/or what you (the visitor) can do there. Unless you are a global brand like IBM or Facebook – where everyone knows what they do. Most businesses still need to answer these questions so that a visitor knows they are in the “right place.”

Keep it simple to the point and in simple language.

Your site is stuffed with keywords

A few years ago when you went to a website you saw lots of copy? Aside from being visually overwhelming, the copy was meant for crawlers and not for human consumption

Unfortunately, some websites are still writing for bots, even though Google’s algorithm is far more sophisticated at determining a page’s relevancy than it was 10 years ago. Stuffing your content with keywords is not going to work any more. While keywords are crucial to driving SEO success, Google will penalise your website in search for keyword-stuffing.

More importantly, keyword-stuffed copy makes for a bad reader experience. So instead or cramming a keyword in every chance you get write great relevant content for your target market. Optimise the content for the relevant keywords in the topic.

It’s missing social sharing buttons on content

If you create excellent content for your target market – they would want to share in on Social Media. Make it easy for them by adding share this buttons in all the pages. This means more site traffic, better search engine rankings, and more lead generation opportunities.

It does not have a blog

If you don’t have a blog, you’re missing out on an opportunity to provide your visitors with a ton of valuable information. And you are missing out on ranking well in Google as Google favours fresh content and a site that is kept updated.

These days, consumers are empowered to perform in-depth company research on their own before ever contacting a salesperson. If they find answers to their common questions in articles on your company’s blog, they’re much more likely to come into the sales process trusting what you have to say because you’ve helped them in the past.

The call-to-action copy doesn’t align with the offer

Your calls-to-action should align with what visitors receive when they redeem your offer. Deliver what your call-to-action promises. If it does not you will lose the prospect forever.

It contains internal linking that isn’t user-friendly

When done correctly, internal links are helpful for readers and website alike. They point readers to other relevant information, and help you improve the organic ranking for important pages on your own website. The linking text should exactly say where they are going and what they will get.

For example this link is self-explanatory – “Read my blog post on how to create correct internal links” Link internally when it will enhance the readers experience and open in a new tab as the visitor may not have completed reading the article.